Turnabout's Fair Play
by ay-cee-ay
Summary: Fair is foul and foul is fair, and loyalty is only applicable when convenient.


Turnabout's Fair Play

Anne-Cara Apple

"This isn't working."

She poked at her food with a stainless steel fork. "You're right. My eggs are runny."

"That's not what I meant," Hecate said sourly. "We haven't done anything spectacular in generations."

"_I've_ done plenty spectacular things, thanks," Gwendolyn replied. "You're the one who's been sitting around doing nothing." She glared at her plate and sipped chocolate milk through a straw. "I still think these are runny. Waiter!"

"Gwendolyn!" the other hissed. "Be quiet! There are more important things than runny eggs! Must you act the way you appear?"

Red-haired and carrying the appearance of a fifteen-year-old, Gwendolyn did not smile. "I act as is expected of me," she said, "as I did when my title was Fate, the Spinner, Clotho. I act as I did when I lived as a wildling of Birnam Wood, and as I do now that I drift from place to place, remembered by only those I choose to remember me, un-aging, undying. I do as I have always done and assimilate myself into society by following society's expectations." She looked at Hecate levelly, eyes far too old for her appearing age. "You, of course, have no such problem."

It was true. While Gwendolyn saw her as a black-haired woman in her mid-twenties, Hecate looked different to everyone who saw her, both in age and appearance. Knowing there was no reason to admit to an already known fact, Hecate changed the subject. "Have you kept in touch with Anghara and Luned?" The gh of the first name was pronounced gutturally, like the Hebrew ch; both syllables of the second were pronounced equally.

"You mean _you haven't?" The younger witch shook her head to indicate the negative. "But I haven't either. Not since the fifties, at least, though I did get a postcard in…" she bit her lip, "1983. Luned was having a very nice time in Bermuda."_

Hecate shook her head in disgust. "Have you _all_ let yourselves go?"

"As if you've not been hibernating this past half-century," Gwendolyn scoffed.

"I ask you to kindly _not_ disrespect me any further," the woman said icily. "Do not forget that I am your elder and will always be, for it was I who granted you life eternal, and I can take that away from you as easily as it was granted, and your powers, as well!"

"Don't be foolish, Hecate," came another voice, as two women, one aged and the other brown-haired and about forty, joined them in the paisley-patterned seats of the restaurant booth. "You know that if you lost us you'd lose most of your power, too." The crone grinned, baring crooked teeth in a way that would have been threatening to one who did not know her. "What've you summoned us for, anyway? I see Gwendolyn's already here, and I've brought Anghara." She gestured to the other woman, who nodded pleasantly.

"Well, it took you long enough," Hecate snapped. "And it's about loss of powers that I've called you here to talk about." She looked at the other three with narrowed eyes. "I want to disband the group."

"_What_?!" Gwendolyn shrieked, jumping up and knocking over an untouched water glass into her eggs; Anghara gasped and dropped the pen she'd been toying with, and Luned merely clenched claw-like fingers into fists.

"Sit down, Gwendolyn, and there's no need to look so horrified, Anghara," said Hecate irritably. "We're outdated. Greece was paradise, and so was England, at least up until the witch burnings." Here Luned flinched; she had barely escaped one of those. "But now no one thinks of witches as anything but Wiccans, or palm-readers. There's no respect for those of us with the _true_ power. Any and every magical thing we do is ignored or scientifically rationalized or simply waved off as an _everyday thing_!" She looked around at the others, torn between fury and fear. "There is no need for us any more, you see. So I might as well get rid of you."

"I resent the implications of 'get rid of,' " Luned began, but Anghara interrupted.

"Specify, Hecate," she said edgily. If you take away our immortality, will we still keep our powers? If you take away our powers, will our immortality remain?" 

"I do not plan on leaving you with either."

"Then we will die."

Hecate nodded. "Most likely."

This did not satisfy her, and Anghara frowned. "Immediately, or after carrying out a mortal life?"

"Most likely immediately," Hecate said matter-of-factly. "Are you three ready?"

Face flushed, Gwendolyn leaned forward angrily. "You plan to destroy us, to take away from us both life and life-force! After countless thousands of years following your orders, you turn on us for no other reason than that you think we are unnecessary! And yet you ask if we are _ready_?!  Well I tell you now, Hecate," she spat, "I am _not_ ready to succumb to your orders this time, never mind that you as good as created me!"

"Part of your power is in us," Angharad said quietly, eyes gleaming and pen shifting to become a wand, "and you lose it if we die. But if you die, we lose nothing. Our combined power is at least equal to yours, if not more powerful." The three link hands around the booth, shutting Hecate into a corner. "Fair is foul," she said.

"And foul is fair," cackled Luned.

Gwendolyn finished the incantation. "Hover through fog and filthy air." Silver light surrounded them, then fog and smoke, and Hecate let out a Harpy-like scream. 

A maiden, a matron, and a crone left the restaurant arm and arm without paying their bill, for no one within remembered any ever being there, and entered out into thunder, lightning, and rain. "Shall we cause chaos?" Gwendolyn asked cheerfully.

"I think we already have," Anghara replied.

"You may do whatever you like," said Luned, "but I am going to Bermuda."


End file.
